Several nations attended the annual Eastern Economic Forum this week in Vladivostok. The gathering shows the power of diplomacy and partnership for multilateral development. If only Western powers could learn. All the more so because many of the nations attending the EEF have had long-running disputes: Russia-Japan, South Korea-North Korea, China-India, Mongolia-Japan, among others. But the willingness for these countries to engage and promote mutual development is a sure sign of the benefits of diplomacy and multilateralism working.

Russians have taken to the polls to cast their ballots in local and regional elections held at a time of a political thaw between Russia and Ukraine as well as simmering tensions with the US over the suspension of a Cold War-era treaty.

Bitcoin miners are flocking to abandoned Soviet-era factories in Eastern Siberia to take advantage of cheap hydroelectricity, reported Coindesk. Several miners have already established operations in Bratsk, an industrial city in Irkutsk Oblast, Russia, located on Angara River near the vast Bratsk Reservoir. These miners are taking advantage of cold temperatures and inexpensive hydroelectricity.

A future deal on Russia’s Su-57 fighter jet has seemingly been brought up by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, after his host, President Vladimir Putin, impressed him with the fifth-generation jet at the MAKS 2019 airshow.

For a long time, the Taliban terrified the former Soviet republics of Central Asia,which were Muslim but marked by their secular past. However, with the threat of ISIS looming on the horizon and the imminent withdrawal of at least half of the American contingent, these Republics have begun dealing with them: they are inescapable partners for a political solution in Afghanistan.

According to the diplomat, the US Embassy in Russia was involved in the unauthorized rallies held in Moscow on August 3. Russia’s Foreign Ministry will submit official notifications to Washington and Berlin over interference of their diplomats and the state-run media in Russia’s politics via covering unsanctioned rallies in Moscow on August 3, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a televised interview with Rossiya’1 channel on Sunday.

The Duran’s Alex Christoforou and Editor-in-Chief Alexander Mercouris discuss the latest Oliver Stone, on the record, interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin where they discussed the widely held belief that the English secret service was actually behind the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal.

Filmmaker Oliver Stone recently interviewed the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin. The transcript was published yesterday evening. Most of the interview is about Ukraine. A separate piece will cover that country. There is also a passage about the U.S. election.But the most interesting bits from Putin are about the Skripal affair. The British and Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Julia were impaired by some chemical substance in early March 2018 in Salisbury. Britain blamed the incident on Russia. CIA Director Gina Haspel, a former CIA station chief in London, used fake pictures of the incident to deceive Trump and to push him to kick out 60 Russian diplomats. (The NYT later ran cover for Haspel.)